The Piranha Plant of Super Staff Bros

Honestly, I'm fine with this. Nothing is immediately broken or anything and that's great, screwing up the tier in a big way during exhibition would suck but I don't think these should be unreasonable to adapt to or anything, this changes up a lot but everything still seems pretty stable. Qwilfish is a big deal, but Spikes were getting to be a bit of a pain and we have two solid new fighting checks so I can live with that. Hail's probably still gonna suck, but both Aurorus and Alolan Sandslash seem fairly usable. Ice resists are gonna have to develop past "I can revenge kill a +1 Jynx" now, which isn't a big deal. Overall I'm quite excited to see what happens, especially since we have exhibition to showcase what people come up with.

also wtf this is a double post how x_x

modedit: Please make insightful posts (meaning no one liners) and try to keep speculation to the minimum

rip silvally-steel, you were taken before you could even rise out of C ranks.

I'm incredibly excited for Spiritomb; Its a really bulky spinblocker that doesn't really care a lot about Skuntank. It can also make a good bulky CM user, as its main weakness is fairy-types which aren't often physical. As an added plus, it can pursuit trap stuff like Oricorio-Sensu through substitute, which is another cool thing over Skuntank. Granted its slow as dirt and its low HP offsets its otherwise good defensive stats, but otherwise still hyped.

Claydol finally drops too, spinning+rocks is always nice. It'll probably get a lot of competition from Palossand as a Ground-type rocker, and with everything getting Defog spinning also isn't in too much demand... less hyped but at least it finally came down.

my dog ate my teams

- Losing Qwilfish was a big deal, and something I'm interested to see how it will play out. Qwilfish was a very common pokemon in the meta because of its ability to blanket check a lot of physical attackers, and Spikes teams were fairly common even though not dominant. Spikes Offense takes a big hit, but Toxic Spikes Weezing balance should improve since Skuntank is the only common Poison left.

- Spiritomb is easily our biggest drop. As said earlier in the thread, its two best sets will probably be Calm Mind Rest-Talk and Priority Pursuit Trapper. CM Rest-Talk looks particularly dangerous because of the lack of physical wall-breakers that can hit it super-effectively. There aren't too many non-Fairy attackers that can really take a chunk out of it after one CM, so it will be dangerous to unprepared teams who fail to keep up offensive pressure. The meta can probably adapt, and stuff like CB Granbull and SD dark-types may rise in prominence for this reason.*(edited based on what Robert Alfons said, thanks) The priority set with Sneak/Sucker/Pursuit will be a cool asset to offensive teams. It is really wonky and has no proper STAB moves so won't do too well vs. the majority of pokemon in the meta but I'm sure it will excel at its niche which is to trap weakened offensive pokemon, especially Ghost and Psychic-types. While it will inevitably face some competition from Skuntank in this role, the typing is different enough to prevent too much overlap, and it can revenge kill Jynx and Oricorio-G reliably (even if behind a Sub!), which is amazing.

- Aurorus is a cool addition which will probably serve a similar role to Abomasnow as an Ice-type wallbreaker. Specs will probably be its best set so it can attempt at 2HKOing Clefairy and Audino, although Stealth Rock lead could be okay on HO or Hail teams. While Aurorus has a poor typing, it still benefits from decent bulk and a flying resistance, so it can take on pokemon like Oricorio-G and choice-locked Mesprit. Its place in the meta will probably be determined by how good slower balances are or whether Hail teams actually do well in the metagame.

- Speaking of Hail, I believe that it will be a viable playstyle in the metagame. I don't mean that you should be stacking 6 Ice-types on a team, or even more than 2, but Ice is a good offensive typing in this tier and I can definitely see it being threatening vs unprepared teams. We have enough Fire-and-Fighting resists to buffet Aurorus, Abomasnow, and Alolan-Sandslash from those attacks and they can break through each others' counters. No tier has really had Hail as a good weather since DPP, so I'm excited to see if it can be done.

- Alolan Sandslash will be a fun pokemon to use. Its biggest niche will probably be using a set of SD + Z-Icicle Crash when paired alongside Aurorus or Abomasnow. Its typing has a lot of downsides but it can actually set up on stuff like Mesprit and Skuntank so it will definitely be better than Beartic. I doubt it will be limited to hail either, because it has the coverage to run sets like Choice Scarf and maybe even function as a standalone wallbreaker. Its speed is a let-down but we'll see.

- I don't think Claydol will be too good, honestly, and probably won't see that much use after "new toy syndrome" drops off. It does decently as a hazard remover, just like Regular Sandslash, but aside from Spinning it is just flatly mediocre in a lot of ways. The stats really limit its offensive presence while the typing has a poor matchup vs a lot of common pokemon in the tier. If you don't explicitly need to use this thing for last minute synergy reasons to removes hazards (which will be rare because we have so many excellent Defog users), then there will be little reason to put it on a team. Any kind of Stealth Rock set will be pointless since Mesprit does that role so much better.

ＤＥＨＵＭＡＮＩＺＥ ＹＯＵＲＳＥＬＦ ＡＮＤ ＦＡＣＥ ＴＯ ＢＬＯＯＤＳＨＥＤ

Claydol finally drops too, spinning+rocks is always nice. It'll probably get a lot of competition from Palossand as a Ground-type rocker, and with everything getting Defog spinning also isn't in too much demand... less hyped but at least it finally came down.

Honestly if I were to use Claydol (although I most likely won't since it looks extremely mediocre) I wouldn't run SR and Rapid Spin on the same set, it sounds nice in theory to be able to do both things at once, but in practice Claydol's plethora of common weaknesses means that it rarely will get the opportunity to do both things during the same battle consistently before it dies. Donphan in RU was never able to do both things in the same battle reliably and that thing has less exploitable weaknesses and way more physical bulk than Claydol (not to mention Claydol wants to go fast and offensive if it wants to actually stand a chance at beating common spinblockers reliably, cutting into its durability even more). You should consider yourself lucky if you can spin once with this thing in a game, let alone set rocks and spin in the same game.

- Spiritomb is easily our biggest drop. As said earlier in the thread, its two best sets will probably be Calm Mind Rest-Talk and Priority Pursuit Trapper. CM Rest-Talk looks particularly dangerous because of the lack of physical wall-breakers that can hit it super-effectively. The only non-Fairy attackers that can really take a chunk out of it after one CM are Kangaskhan and Stoutland. I can see the meta adapt, and stuff like CB Granbull rising in prominence for this reason, although I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out broken. The priority set with Sneak/Sucker/Pursuit will be a cool asset to offensive teams. It is really wonky and has no proper STAB moves so won't do too well vs. the majority of pokemon in the meta but I'm sure it will excel at its niche which is to trap weakened offensive pokemon, especially Ghost and Psychic-types. While it will inevitably face some competition from Skuntank in this role, the typing is different enough to prevent too much overlap, and it can revenge kill Jynx and Oricorio-G reliably (even if behind a Sub!), which is amazing.

I don't think CroTomb has the potential to be broken. It will surely be a good set considering defensive Tomb is a sturdy fighting check and with RestTalk it can keep itself healthy throughout the match and it is true that against the right team a CroTomb is difficult to stop once it gets going, but there are plenty of viable ways to beat it to the point where I feel losing to it just means you failed in the teambuilding department. Aside from Scrappy attackers, there are quite a few bulky boosters that can boost alongside Tomb and win in the long run like CM Clef and BU Gurdurr (the latter should be kept somewhat healthy tho, probably). SD Dark-types like Absol and Alolarat also use it as setup fodder. If nothing else you can use Taunt Skuntank (special or w/ Crunch) to beat it, or even a strong special wallbreaker like Dragonium Drampa if you get in before it racks up too many CMs. Let's also not overestimate Tomb's physical bulk since even with max investment it gets chunked very heavily by random Z-moves and stuff like CB Aggron. There's plenty of ways to deal with it (most of them were already viable before the tier shifts too) so whoever finds themselves 6-0d by it just didn't prepare for it at all.

Anyway, Black Glasses trapper looks fun, might force Mesprit to start running Dazzling Gleam again. Tomb's bound to be a very solid addition to the metagame, the rest of the drops are more niche but mostly usable on the right team at least (unless you're called Claydol, in which case you're frankly just bad!)

僕ら が いつも いつ まで も。

Right, so I wanted to address the drops, as I am a pretty big fan of them. (not super good at these kinds of posts, so forgive me)

This is probably the drop I’m most excited about. I have a feeling that this thing is gonna be pretty solid due to a number of reasons. Respectable bulk, decent offenses, good defensive typing, both of its abilities are pretty useful. Access to Sucker Punch, Shadow Sneak, and Pursuit allows for it to check Jynx, as well as Raichu-A, Mesprit, and Oricorio-G. It can even bypass Oricorio’s Subs because of Infiltrator. Crotomb also looks scary to go up against on bulkier teams, and it even has Pressure, which helps especially against opposing fat teams. Spiritomb’s definitely something I’m going to try out, and something to look out for. I can see stuff like Scrappy mons (Stoutland and Kangaskhan), Dazzling Gleam on Mesprit and maybe even Claydol, and stuff like Granbull, Mawile, and Clefairy rising a bit.

Aurorus is definitely gonna be a threat to keep in mind when building. This thing’s going to be a massive thorn in the side of teams that use stuff like Lanturn or Magmortar as their Ice-type resist because of Specs Freeze-Dry and Earth Power, it has the ability to bypass Calm Mind users with Frost Breath, a decent speed tier, hail damage is really good for wearing down things like Musharna and Pokemon that resist Blizzard, and access to Earth Power allows it to beat things like Togedemaru. It can also function as a good offensive suicide lead, as its STABs are annoying for common hazard removers to switch in on, and hail damage wearing down opposing Pokemon on top of Stealth Rock and potential Spikes making it easier for certain wallbreakers to push through is certainly going to be annoying for teams to deal with. The typing isn't the best defensively. 4x weakness to Mach Punch is :( and weakness to Rocks is annoying, too, but it isn't the worst. I can see Miltank rising in usage if this becomes a major threat.

Hail has its best abuser back, but thankfully, we aren't gonna go through AVeil 2.0. Under hail, it outspeeds everything up to Scarf Primeape if Jolly, one of the most common revenge killers, which is pretty nice. I can see maybe Swords Dance + Icium Z being the most common set because it can break through bulkier Pokemon like Ferroseed and Weezing. Obvious issues are the lack of initial power, 4x weakness to Mach Punch, and being outsped by stuff like Scarf Pyroar, but I don't feel like it will be too bad. Hail definitely got better with it returning.

The last one, and the main one a lot of people were anticipating. The ability to both set and remove hazards is pretty decent role compression, and the immunity to all forms of hazards barring Stealth Rock is nice. It also gives the tier another spinner, which is very much appreciated considering that there were only 3 viable spinners before. It has coverage for spinblockers too, which is a plus. It isn’t a very reliable Fighting-type check despite its good bulk, though. Many of them either have Knock Off to burn its Colbur Berry or U-turn to heavily dent it and bring in something that can threaten it out. I think offensive Spin + 3 Attacks will be the best set, but it can also set Rocks if need be. I wouldn't run Rocks + Spin on the same set, though, unless really necessary.

The Piranha Plant of Super Staff Bros

Hello, it's me, trying to bump metagame discussion again. It's understandable that these are kind of dead because there's no suspects, but that's actually what I'm here to talk about. Over the past couple of weeks, council has been discussing the future of PU tiering and the potential for suspect tests and/or retests, and it seems only fair to bring this to a more open discussion before anything is actually done.

The current state of the metagame is, all in all, pretty good in my opinion. PU is diverse and healthy, the reason we haven't bothered to suspect anything is that nothing stands out as broken. If there is a flaw, and I think there is, it's in how many threats you have to account for when teambuilding. PU is arguably a little too diverse, it's entirely possible to make good teams out of almost any archetype but very hard to actually build when you have to account for some really strong threats with very few counters. There's just such a massive list of things you have to keep in check, from common top threats like Archeops to lesser seen but incredibly deadly sweepers like OTR Exeggutor that building can often feel very strained. Now this isn't a council consensus, but multiple people including myself feel this way and if you don't consider this an issue then I'm not sure what other issues people would have with the meta. Overall it's fairly healthy but maybe with a few too many threats to consider.

Resuspects: We adopted the koko tiering method with the intent of resuspecting things later, so this would seem like the natural step. However, it is fairly questionable whether or not adding anything to the tier would actually make it any better. Considering that the only problem some council members had was the overabundance of offensive threats, adding Charizard/Gallade/Sawk/Tauros seems like it would only exacerbate the problem. It is entirely possible that they might not be broken, but because it looks so likely that they'd simply add to the unhealthiness there is little desire to respect them at the current time.

Suspects: This is also pretty tricky because, like I said earlier, nothing is outright broken. However, there are some candidates worth considering. Archeops is a really restrictive Pokemon that is S rank and still somehow underrated for its potential to just consistently grab KOs after some very minor chip on a few things like Ferroseed. It doesn't get in as consistently as other wallbreakers, but the pressure it puts on offense is a solid trade-off. This is also Galbia's preferred option if we do anything.
My preferred option is to suspect Passimian, although I don't know for sure what I'd vote. It's just a really stupid Pokemon at times, we can have so many fighting resists in this tier but when it has a strong U-Turn versus everything all the 50/50s are really skewed in its favor. Nothing else puts quite so much consistent pressure on every single team, and it's undeniable that this is what's warped the fighting check meta from a mild need to keep scarf primeape in check to something like weezing being insufficient without a secondary resist. At the same time, yeah its Speed is really mediocre and it's not hard to revenge kill CB, and those two things have kept it still reasonably manageable although not necessarily healthy.

All of this might be a worthless wall of text because honestly, doing nothing might just be the best option here. Nothing says we have to suspect anything right now. However, some reduction of the amount of top tier threats in this meta would really be nice, and it's worth serious discussion here. What you post has a decent chance of influencing the council's decision since we haven't been able to reach a full agreement so far, so I'd love to see what people think.

Blessed

Okay, so I was meaning to post but I forgot to do so earlier. I believe we do require a suspect test currently and the Pokemon that is most deserving of one is, by far, Passimian. While I do see the arguments for potentially doing a suspect test around Archeops, I believe Passimian is far harder to prepare for and restricts teambuilding more than Archeops does. The main reason I'm more inclined towards a Passimian suspect is because, unlike Archeops, you aren't able to tell what set Passimian is running from preview, Choice Band, Choice Scarf, or Sub Bulk Up, meaning you have to actively scout to find out; this is not the same situation that Archeops puts you in, as you'll almost always know what it's running bar a varied 4th moveslot.

Now I don't want to completely copy what Megazard said, but Passimian puts extreme pressure on almost every archetype in the meta, from Stall to Hyper Offense, and pressures each different archetype more depending on the set that it's running; Choice Band pressures slower teams more and Choice Scarf has a stupid match up against offensive teams. Also, Passimian finally got rid of one of its best checks, in Qwilfish, meaning it no longer gets completely out-shadowed by Primeape, along with the Knock Off access that it received in USUM. Passimian basically forces you to run multiple checks to attempt to deal with it, and even then you're forced into a 50/50 each time. It's extremely unhealthy and honestly is one of the scariest Pokemon to face.

I'll most likely talk about some other meta aspects later, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on what I think requires a suspect the most.

I don't really have much to say with regards to which mon we should suspect (because if you left it up to me I'd give pyroar/drama the axe, they're both really stupid to switch into without something like Clefairy or Type:Null), but I think it should be the offensive threat that requires the most specific counterplay. Which I get is really subjective and vague, so I'll try to elaborate/explain it.

Imagine gen 6 PU where everyone is using Tangela and Golem as their physical walls, but suddenly we get pokemon X thats handled really well by Corsola and dunks on the other two. Teams are then in a situation where if they want to use Tangela/Golem as their physical defensive measures are caught in a snare because there's pokemon X which, while not too common, is common enough for it to be a problem in the matchup. So pokemon X skews what it means to be a good physical attacker check/counter (this is really simplified but that was the point I was trying to make). All viable pokemon skew what it means to be a good X, the question is to what extent they do so.

How much something like Passimian 'skews' what is necessary to be a physical attacker check/counter is something I'm kind of on the fence about, but I don't think it really exerts more pressure on a team than another strong banded fighting-type (ex: would CB Primeape be able to do similar things against similar teams?). But then again its effectively a bulkier/slower Sawk that trades a useful ability for U-turn, and no offensive threat is worse with U-turn. Also Sawk is banned, so maybe it does skew the requirements too much.

posting to make sure people know where i stand about the current metagame and state of the PU tier.

current state
i know there has been a lot of discussion, mostly on discord (you should join, we have nekos too), about potential suspects and the little amount of tiering that has been done after the Hariyama suspect test. a lot of things have changed from that time and recently people started thinking the tier got stale and less enjoyable overall from the beginning, mostly due to teambuilding.
there is a huge number of threats that we have that you have to account for and, even thought that all of them have a couple of solid answers, it's difficult to deal with without running the same builds all the time. this situation is pretty evident and the main reason why the retests for all the BL pokemon have been put on hold, for now.

the recent departure of qwilfish made it even more of a strain since it was the best spiker and an amazing glue that solved a lot of problems (fighting and normal types, mainly, but also absorbing toxic spikes) so we started thinking about taking action to try and identify what are the main problems.

problems/solutions

the birds
those are what i think are the main problems with the current metagame. flying-type moves are the scariest to deal with in the game right now and the introduction of SSSS (the z-move) just makes birds much more threatening against anything slower than them. Oricorio-G and Swanna sit in a crowder speed tier but they are able to deal with traditional flying resists (steel and rock types) easily with their STAB moves to make them much less effective and Archeops can do that with raw power and has the added benefit of a great speed tier.
those are the reason eelektross and to a lesser extent lanturn are incredible right now and a must on pretty much any good offensive team.

i am not going to post calcs since people have done it a million times already in the VR thread so look for them there.

among those i am pushing for an Archeops suspect test because in my opinion it is the main offender; it doesn't need to run a z-move, has a great speed tier since floatzel and scarfers are the only ones to outspeed it, and can pretty much get past anything but regirock (great right now) with the right amount of prediction. the only surefire way is by outspeeding it and that's saying a lot.

passimian
i could mention primeape too since it's more effective on some teams but passimian is arguably the best one right now and one of the scariest threats to prepare for. it has the ability to break through the less bulky fighting resists with uturn and knock off (the only surefire counters to choice band are palossand and gourgeist-xl) and offensive teams need to run multiple resists/immunities to deal with choice scarf. it gained a lot of traction in USM after qwilfish left since it's now able to 2HKO almost anything on offense with choice scarf provided it predicts correctly.

what might put it over the edge in my opinion is the presence of spiritomb in the tier to trap said immunities and to soften mesprit for the late game against offense.. what makes it less of a problem than archeops in my opinion is the fact that it has to choose whether to be fast or very strong.

...the others
there are other big threats that in my opinion ought to be discussed in the future. jynx and pyroar in my opinion have the potential to be problem mons and are just a bit overshadowed at the moment. magmortar (but also aurorus) are incredibly scary to slower teams and i don't think they are problematic but they might be for someone

introducing new stuff
this is another potential way we could approach this problem. tauros is the only thing in PUBL that might not be incredibly busted in the metagame (and will be tested eventually) and according to some council member (i personally don't agree) it might be the solution to our problems. introducing it could lessen the relevance of the mons in the 85-100 speed tier that currently rule matchups and maybe change the metagame for the best

me IRL

It's been a while since I've posted in this thread, but that's perhaps a symptom of my using Discord more often than Smogon to discuss the meta in real-time with other players. Anyway, this post will aim to identify the primary problem in this meta as it relates to teambuilding, as well as some possible solutions.

META OVERVIEW

Most of what follows here will echo the opinions of those above. I also believe there to be far too many wallbreakers to successfully account for in teambuilding at the moment. The meta is not stale, in fact, the opposite is true: it is diverse to the point that the most effective method of teambuilding is to focus on using Pokemon that find greater utility through blanket checking as large a portion of the meta as possible. For example, Palossand, Gastrodon, Sableye, Weezing, and Regirock are some commonly used Pokemon that cover for a vast number of the tier's physical attackers, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, blanket checks to specially offensive attackers like AV Hitmonchan, specially defensive Clefairy, and AV Eelektross are valuable for the same reason.

ISSUES IN TEAMBUILDING

The sheer number of wallbreakers present has dictated the flow of the meta; Pokemon once thought to be too niche to justify a teamslot have seen increased usage. For example, Carbink was previously relegated only to Trick Room teams, but as the meta developed, its specially defensive set was used to cover for multiple, specially-based wallbreakers like Pyroar, Magmortar, Oricorio-G, and Drampa all in one slot. Building with this defensive mindset in an effort to account for each threat in the meta is not always advantageous because doing so can result in a slower, more passive build. This trend has indirectly bolstered the effectiveness of stallbreakers as a result; to give a specific example, this is one of the reasons why Articuno was such a potent threat in previous metas (especially in the time between the Hariyama suspect and the departure of Qwilfish and Silvally-Steel), as it takes advantage of some of these more passive Pokemon, easily winning out over components of balance like bulky Lanturn, Ferroseed, Gastrodon, Weezing, etc. To further exemplify this point, Pinsir is another Pokemon that is well-suited to taking advantage of this defensively-oriented method of building, as Mold Breaker SD sets tend to rip through many of the meta's blanket checks like Eelektross, Weezing, Altaria, Ferroseed, and so on. I would liken the teambuilding process in the current meta to an elaborate game of whack-a-mole: it is such that, once you've prepared for one wallbreaker, for example, using Ferroseed or Regirock to account for CB Stoutland, you've opened yourself up to a different wallbreaker like Magmortar and Drampa. Or, once you've finally built something that addresses as many wallbreakers as possible, suddenly your team has become incredibly slow, is weak to stallbreakers, and is able to be 6-0ed by threats like Articuno and Pinsir. This is true, more or less, in any meta: there is no perfect team, and you'll always find a hole somewhere. But, the number of holes in teams across this specific meta is simply too great and it really puts a damper on teambuilding in general.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION

Rather than introducing something like Tauros to address the plethora of wallbreakers that hover around that base 80 Speed benchmark (ex. Passimian, Stoutland, Magmortar, etc.), I think it will be a more effective strategy for the long-term to hold a suspect test for our strongest wall-breaker first (more on this below), and see how the meta develops from there.

BIRBS NOT SO BAD?

At this point, my post differentiates itself from galbia's: in my opinion, the birbs, especially those listed above (i.e. Swanna, Oricorio-G, and Archeops) are not the most problematic for three reasons.
Firstly, the new drops that we've recently gained are all threatening to these Flying-types in some way or another. For instance, Spiritomb is easily able to check Oricorio-G, even through Substitute thanks to Infiltrator, via Shadow Sneak, Pursuit, and Sucker Punch. Alolan Sandslash checks all of these with Hail up, and Aurorus dropping increases the likelihood that Alolan Sandslash will be able to threaten these Flying-types while checking Oricorio-G to boot.
Secondly, even without these new drops putting a damper on the effectiveness of Flying-types, I believe the meta has already adapted to them sufficiently; this is evidenced in part by the rising viability of Eelektross, which moved from B+ to A+ from December to late January. Each team archetype has a tool to reliably combat Flying-types; for example, Carbink is commonly seen on Stall and Semi-stall to check Oricorio-G; Lanturn and Regirock see plenty of use on Balance and beat out Swanna and Archeops, respectively, and on more offensive builds, Eelektross is regularly employed as a slow pivot to safely bring in other offensive threats and has utility in beating all of these birbs.
Lastly, these Flying-types are more manageable in practice than in theory, mostly due to their potential being limited by SR and offensive pressure in general. This applies to Archeops especially, as this problem is exacerbated by the number of priority users in the tier and Defeatist, which is important to note when considering it for a suspect test. This is more or less tangential, but a lot of people really only stick to its AcroEQ set by favoring Taunt over more uncommon options like U-turn, Stone Edge, and Earth Power (basically, moves that could either wear down or more easily bypass switch-ins like Regirock and Eelektross), leading it to be more predictable and less threatening as a result. If people ever innovate more with Archeops, I could see it being suspected down the road, but for the time being, I see it as something very threatening and deserving individual preparation in teambuilding, yet still manageable without devoting too many slots to checking or countering it.

POSSIBLE SUSPECT: PASSIMIAN

Rather than looking at Archeops, I think the Pokemon that deserves our immediate attention is Passimian, as its offensive presence forces players to use multiple slots to account for it: one hard counter, Palossand as an example, and then other offensive checks such as Swanna, Timid Specs Mesprit, Archeops, and so on. If it didn't regularly run U-turn, it wouldn't be as big a deal, but there's not a whole lot other than residual damage from entry hazards or Rocky Helmet or a smart double switch keeping it from pivoting in and out until it's time for Passimian to break something mid- to late-game. Running Protect on Regirock and Ferroseed is a viable strategy to scout for when it'll be locking into Close Combat, allowing you to pivot into a Ghost-type to punish it, but there's not even a guarantee that it's running a choice item despite Choice Band variants being the most common (SubBU sets were seen in the last seasonal tournament, and Z-crystals are possible as well). To add to this, running a Choice Scarf allows it to bypass some of its offensive checks; this unique combination of variability in its sets, its high power, and the strain it exerts on teambuilding in my opinion necessitates a suspect.

We Eat Losers

Villager Main!

I wanted to discuss real quickly about the 3 new drops we got as for the February drops. Torkoal is the first of these and hands down also the least relevant of these. It faced stiff competition last generation against other Rapid Spinners like Armaldo and Defoggers like Swanna and Lumineon, and although it could use Shell Smash to boost it's offensive stats, it still wasn't all that great. This generation we have a plethora of hazard removal options like Hitmonchan, Kabutops, Shiftry, and Altaria, as well as Turtonator who, although is not a great Shell Smash user itself, outclasses Torkoal in that regard in nearly every conceivable way. So much for GameFreak trying to give Torkoal Drought this generation. Torkoal is an easy E Rank.

Dugtrio doesn't do a whole lot for the tier that Dugtrio-Alola didn't already do. Establishing a Base 120 Speed tier is cool and all, but having even fewer resistances and immunities for it to switch into really sucks. Dugtrio does however become one of the best Earthquake spammers from HO Gravity teams. I don't think this will be enough to save it, but who knows? Maybe the lack of a weakness to Mach Punch could be enough.

Smeargle, unlike the previous two, will shake up the metagame completely. Hyper Offense just received the best Sticky Web user, the fastest Spore user, and do you guys remember the Belly Drum V Create Extreme Speed set Smeargle was starting to use at the tail end of ORAS? That's back too! To put it short, Smeargle gives HO teams infinite creativity and will be a threat to look out for in the coming weeks of Exhibition and Winter Seasonal.

formerly GenZeon

I'm really hyped for the new drops not gonna lie. Torkoal will be as bad as ever, being outclassed as a Shell Smash user by Turtonator and being outshined by basically any other viable spinner in the tier.

Dugtrio on the other hand will be actually really good in the tier. It is the fastest relevant mon in the tier outspeeding the likes of Raichu, Archeops!, Lycanroc and Zebstrika. With a good attack stat of 100, and the access to the move Sucker Punch makes it one of the most threatening mons against offense. Pursuit is also a good option trapping those fast frail mons like Oricorio.

This will probably be the standard set. With Rockium Z it gets the guarenteed knock outs on mons like Archeops, Abomasnow, Oricorio, Swanna and probably many more. Memento is a cool supporting move for your setup sweepers, giving mons like Carracosta more room for setup. Toxic on the other hand cripples common checks, for example Gastrodon and Palossand. Another important thing to note is, that slow scarfers like Aurorus and Abomasnow get outsped, which plunges their viability quite a bit I believe.

Also with Smeargle back in the tier, offensive hazard teams are back. Maybe this will increase the viability of defiant mons like Primeape and Pawniard once again. Also strong semi-fast breakers like banded Passimian and specs Aurorus get better due to webs. But let's wait and see how it will turn out in practice.

僕ら が いつも いつ まで も。

hey guys, just wanted to express my thoughts on both passimian and the quick drops in a quick post. (ik i just did this for the january drops but like. insert some good reasoning for this here.)

Of everything considered 'broken' or 'too good', Passimian is definitely the head honcho. Personally, I feel that Passimian is too much for the tier to handle. As mentioned by others, it puts a lot of pressure on pretty much every type of build (Choice Band is annoying for bulkier teams, Choice Scarf is annoying for offensive builds, and Substitute + Bulk Up can be annoying for both), forcing teams to fit multiple Fighting checks / immunities (Palossand + Weezing / Mesprit) just so they don't auto-lose to it, but then it just either burns their Colbur Berry and makes them easier to trap with Pursuit with Knock Off or pivots out with U-turn. The drops have been rather kind to it, as well. Aurorus blasts through pretty much every Fighting-resistant Pokemon while getting in with ease due to U-turn, Spiritomb can trap and remove Pokemon like Mesprit and can also lure in and weaken Weezing and Gurdurr with Psychic, (although it does offer another Fighting-immunity, the Black Glasses set doesn't appreciate switching in on Knock Off) and Smeargle can skew Passimian's matchup against its offensive checks with Sticky Web, while also potentially incapacitating checks with Spore and wearing down grounded ones with entry hazards. Scouting to see what set Passimian is running isn't as easy as it sounds, and its bulk isn't even terrible. The combination of these aspects makes it a bit too overwhelming imo.

Torkoal is without a doubt the least impressive of the drops. Whatever role it wants to accomplish is just done better by another Pokemon in the tier, whether it be a Rapid Spin user, a Shell Smash sweeper, a Stealth Rock user, or a wallbreaker. I feel Dugtrio, while not the best, will have a place in the tier because of the solid Speed tier, usable Attack, and access to good support options, mainly Memento. Finally, Smeargle dropping will be a boon for hyper offensive teams. The tier becoming more geared towards bulkier, balanced teams is annoying for it, but slower breakers such as the aforementioned Passimian, Stoutland, and Aurorus do appreciate its presence.

The Piranha Plant of Super Staff Bros

After more debate and seeing your feedback, the PU council has decided to suspect test Passimian!

Reasoning

The council believes that Passimian may have an adverse effect on teambuilding. It is one of the strongest Pokemon in the metagame, and only the sturdiest Fighting resists such as Palossand or Weezing can hope to take it on. Passimian is the main reason that most every team requires 2-3 Fighting checks, being much harder to take on than other Fighting-types like Primeape or Gurdurr. While the tier doesn't lack Fighting checks, access to a strong Knock Off and U-Turn allows Passimian to pressure almost all of them extremely effectively. U-Turn in particular can turn many situations into 50/50s in Passimian's favor, which can be extremely problematic on an already powerful wallbreaker with a resistance to Stealth Rock. Passimian's Choice Scarf set is also noteworthy. It can be very hard to distinguish from Choice Band at team preview, outspeeds and OHKOs most offensive Pokemon, and generally requires noticeably different counterplay to Choice Band. While it may not be strictly broken, all of this can make building and playing around Passimian highly restrictive, and the council believes that this is worthy of a suspect test.
For the record, we strongly considered different options but the majority agreed on suspecting Passimian over Archeops. This doesn't mean that we won't suspect Archeops in the future, regardless of the outcome.

Cool to see some action in this tier. PU for me has always been relatively stable and fun to play and while there are a few mons that are very good but not classically broken, I think there are only a select few that can truly be considered problematic, and in that respect, I applaud the council for deciding to suspect Passimian over, say, Archeops.

To illustrate why I think Pass deserves this suspect, I wanna start by drawing a comparison with Passimian to other wallbreakers in the tier (those who will find this all obvious can feel free to skip this paragraph but I find it useful for framing my first point). The amount of good wallbreakers we have in PU is insane, and there are many reasons as to why. Some, like Magmortar and Drampa, are simply nigh unwallable, inspiring the usage of mons like Clefairy and Carbink to even hope to have a GSI against them. Others, like Pyroar and Archeops, possess very high speed, which allows them to avoid being revenge killed by anything not named a scarfer and force out plenty of slower mons. Finally, others like Gurdurr and Eelektross have good bulk and defensive typings, allowing them to double as pivots and use their defensive presence to come in on opponents and start breaking down teams. While all common wallbreakers in PU possess, at most, two of these qualities, all usually lack in one category. Archeops, while incredibly strong and fast, has the bulk of a wet paper bag, an issue further exacerbated by a weakness to rocks and Defeatist. Eelektross is important as a check to birds and has incredible coverage, but is piss slow, usually always forcing it to take a hit before firing off one of its own. Gurdurr is also slow, but due to its only just good attack and the commonality of its checks, it requires more support than most wallbreakers to break through a team. Ultimately, no one wallbreaker in PU has everything going for it.

I say this all because I believe, to quite a good extent, Passimian does have it all going for it. Now, obviously Passimian doesn’t have the speed of Archeops or the bulk of Eelektross; if he did, he wouldn’t have been allowed in the tier for so long, but I do believe he possesses enough of each quality to be a problem. I don’t think I need to go into great detail on the monkey’s strength; that has always been a constant with Passimian. But to reiterate, if you don’t have one of Palossand, Gourgeist-XL, or Weezing, you’re probably either losing one or taking massive damage whenever Passimian comes in. And even then, you can easily just burn the ghosts’ colbur berries with Knock, making them more susceptible to the dark-types Pass loves to be paired with, and Weezing isn’t too difficult to wear down at all. Its speed and bulk are more important to focus on here, I feel, because they’re deceptively good. 80 base speed is nothing special, really, even Magmortar outspeeds it, but compared to other mostly uncounterable mons like Aurorus, it’s a godsend to be so fast. More importantly, combined with access to U-turn, Passimian can be quite the capable Choice Scarf user, being able to revenge-kill many offensive mons quite handily. Furthermore, possessing a choice scarf can radically change how teams deal with Passimian: since it’s nigh impossible to safely switch-into, most teams will have to deal with Band Passimian by sacking, then bringing in a revenge killer to force it out and regain momentum. But with Scarf Pass, now you need a scarfer with >80 speed to revenge kill it, and, despite losing the extra power of Choice Band, Pass’s high attack and fantastic coverage still makes it a bitch to switch into. Luckily, there are quite the handful of viable choice scarf users above 80 speed, but now we have to factor in the monkey’s bulk, specifically on the physical side. 100/90/60 bulk is, even uninvested, quite impressive for an offensive mon, and allows Pass to, in a worst-case scenario, stomach a lot of neutral physical attacks and retaliate back with its own. For reference, Scarf Primeape’s Close Combat fails to ohko even a -1 Passimian. God help anything weaker than that. We now find ourselves needing a specially-based choice scarfer that can hit Passimian super-effectively in order to revenge kill this Passimian. Ok, not unmanageable, a lot of good scarfers in PU are specially-based anyways, but the restriction in team selection here is noticeable. Banded Passimian has a grand sum of three “counters” and the bulk to stomach a hit and fire back hard; Scarf Passimian is still annoying to switch into and comes with the upside of being much more difficult to force out.

This comes to the big distinction we need to make; we know Passimian isn’t overtly broken as previous suspects were, but it also exerts a very noticeable and arguably negative influence, needing more than one solid fighting check and a good revenge killer to keep it in check, and even then Pass will likely still be able to put in work thanks to its ability to preserve momentum via U-Turn and support from teammates, most notably pursuiters. If banned, the need for this excessive amount of preparation for one mon will go away, opening up more room to build for other threats and overall make building more creative and freeform. For these reasons, I’m supporting a Passimian ban.

Just wanted to say this tier is probably the best this gen and I appreciate the council taking initiative to make sure it stays that way. Cutest TLs NA

ＤＥＨＵＭＡＮＩＺＥ ＹＯＵＲＳＥＬＦ ＡＮＤ ＦＡＣＥ ＴＯ ＢＬＯＯＤＳＨＥＤ

While I think suspecting Passimian wasn't a terrible idea, I find myself heavily leaning towards no ban here. Passimian is very frightening in theory with its Sawk-like offensive stats and movepool, a strong U-Turn, and surprisingly great physical bulk, and while I won't deny that it's a top tier offensive threat in the metagame, I have little reason to assume it's broken. In fact, to me it seems that if it weren't for the fact that some people find the meta to be somewhat stale and centralized due to the great amounts of top tier threats that force you to run specific Pokemon to deal with them, a Passimian suspect test would be out of the question to begin with.

So, assuming that our goal is to free up teambuilding, we should assess how much Passimian impacts teambuilding. I will make a rough distinction between three types of team styles and how they deal with Passimian in theory: hyperoffense, stall, and balance/bulky offense, the latter being by far the most common team archetype as of right now, therefore also being the one I will look at the most. Hyperoffense generally deals with Passimian fairly well, not surprising considering Passimian's speed tier isn't the greatest and it lacks priority, making only Scarf somewhat threatening, but obviously as long as the offense team has at least one Fighting check (and it should) and a faster Scarfer (and it should) there's nothing that makes Passimian particularly troublesome. For stall, CB is slightly problematic, but absolutely not the hardest thing to deal with since bulky Fighting resists/immunities like Altaria, Palossand, and CM Spiritomb are very good on stall, it's way easier to beat it than something like CB Aggron or just about any Magmortar set, for example.

Neither of those team styles are particularly common, so I only mentioned them to show that neither of them is greatly impaired by Passimian in their viability. The real question is what Passimian's impact is on more common builds. What ceal said is sort of true: generally speaking, you'll need at least two Fighting resists if you want a team that consistently performs well against Passimian. They don't both have to be bulky though, generally speaking you're safe as long as you run one bulky resist and one Ghost-type (one mon can be both, but you still want a secondary resist to be sure). You can even deviate from this if you want, you don't need a Ghost if you don't want to, you'll simply have to rely more on prediction to keep Passimian at bay but it's not like you need to be extremely prepared in order to not be overwhelmed. Also, it's not like these Fighting checks are that awkward to fit on your team: Mesprit and Palossand are some of the best defensive SR setters, Swanna and Oricorio are top tier breakers, Gurdurr/Spiritomb/Clefairy are all very solid setup sweepers (and Spiritomb can still check if it's trapper instead of CM), Weezing is a solid wall, Altaria is the best defensive hazard remover, etc etc. Point is, running at least two of these Pokemon does not pose much of an issue when they provide a lot of utility in and of themselves for any balance team.

Furthermore, how much is it Passimian's fault that we have to run multiple Fighting resists, anyway? We have three other top tier Fighting-types that need to be taken into account, one of which is quite similar to Passimian in what it does (trading some raw power, bulk, and Knock Off for a better speed tier and a situationally useful ability). In case we do ban Passimian, can we freely run Mesprit as our only true Fighting check? I would argue that in most instances you need more than one anyway: . Basically, Passimian doesn't restrict teambuilding as much as some would like to believe, it's not an anti-meta presence that forces you to twist your team in weird ways and run otherwise barely viable Pokemon. This is all without even mentioning that since the best Passimian sets are Choice locked, simply getting your predictions right can keep it at bay. This doesn't mean Passimian doesn't impact teambuilding at all, however I think its impact on the metagame is exaggerated.

Passimian is a top threat, but it's not "uncounterable", it doesn't make any playstyle less viable, it doesn't force teams to run specific counters that are otherwise niche at best and leave gaping holes in your team, so to me it's just a great threat that ought to be prepared for, but at the moment I find it to be neither broken nor particularly unhealthy for the metagame.

Now, I'm on the fence for this suspect, and since lots of pro-ban arguments are above, I'd like to give some points for the no-ban argument, specifically usage.
There is no denying that weezing, defensive mesprit, and pallosand are really the only switchins to banded passimian (or gorgeist, but he's not used much). However, all of these are top 10 usage, and I doubt that is entirely due to passimian itself (see: gurdurr, hitmonchan, and primeape all also in the top 10 usage) while passimian doesnt even make top 20 usage. I understand we dont ban based on usage, but you have to admit - this number of fighting answers in top usage isn't due to passimian's overcentralization of the tier. It's due to the number of high usage fighting types. While Passimian is a powerhouse, I believe the other fighters (gurdurr, primeape, hitmonchan) fill its different rolls better, given they have usable abilities and at least one of more speed, more bulk, or more utility (status absorb, dissuade defog/parting shot, rapid spin respectively). Choice banded passimian is the specific outlier, but it easily has more checks and more counters than something like specs drampa or toxic orb zangoose, and unlike Drampa's case, passimian's checks and counters are nearly half of the top used mons in PU (again, probably due to the prevalence of the other fighting types rather than the broken power of passimian). And unlike zangoose's case, passimian lacks priority, reliable setup, and a decent ability. Also, as mentioned above, it is almost always choice locked, limiting it even further as a breaker/sweeper.

I don't see passimian do enough or see its prevalence too much to believe it is a driving factor in team building restrictions ALONE.
I truly don't believe banning passimian will change the tier from what it currently is at all, and I don't see passimian being used so much that it is over centralizing the tier. But it could be too strong for the tier, hence my on the fence stance. Aka, a fighting type is, in my opinion, definitely the problem - I just don't know if it's passimian that deserves the ban.

That's my two cents for the no-ban argument. Hopefully that provides something to think about before clicking that ban button.

The Piranha Plant of Super Staff Bros

I'm not that concerned about this being dead because there's been a lot of discord discussion over the past week, but here's my 2 cents for anyone not on discord. While I respect Rob's post (the only substantive anti-ban arguments yet), I just disagree with it on fundamental levels that come down to a difference of opinion. Passimian is what forces you to run such heavy fighting resists, it's the main factor in constricting teambuilding, and it does warrant a ban because of the way it's been staling the meta.

On "other fighting types do the same thing so this isn't just Passimian", I think the key rebuttal is just looking at the pre-Passimian getting really good meta. When it was all Primeape/Gurdurr, one could quite comfortably run much weaker fighting resists, perhaps only a Weezing or a Mesprit+Swanna, things you simply cannot run in this metagame because Passimian eats them alive. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, Pokemon change the meta all the time. But I argue that the number and usefulness of Fighting resists we have makes for some overly restrictive building choices because of the care you have to devote to making sure your team is safe against Passimian.

For me, building against Passimian has become mostly just a checklist. The first thing you check is whether you can fit Palossand/Gourgeist/CroTomb, Weezing, or phys def Altaria on your team. 5 mons that I'd consider strong checks, 3 of which kinda overlap with the whole slow bulky ghost thing but fortunately not so much you can't distinguish them. Then you get to pick from the secondary middling power checks, which are Mesprit, Musharna, Sableye, and Gurdurr. If you managed to fit 2 of those on the same team then congratulations, you're done. If you could fit a strong check but not a middle check, you get to pick out 1-2 of the weak checks for your team, whereas if you got a weak but no strong you get 2-3 weak checks and have to pay very close attention to if any of your mons let Passimian switch in easily. There are a lot of those, and they will require you to run more weak checks. Those weak checks include Swanna, Sensu, Pompom, Haunter, Golurk, Ghostvally, and Fairyvally. That keeping track of Passimian fodder thing should really just apply to all teams by the way, fitting Ferroseed on teams has begun to feel like a chore and it still gets to run Protect and chip Passimian with Spikes. Oh and there are a few more mons but I'm including the good/somewhat splashable things, not Grabull. Oh and remember that a lot of these get Pursuit trapped so have fun with the threat of U-Turn into Skuntank. And also you can mess with those combinations of checks, this isn't meant to be perfect but just get the point across of how little choice you have vs this.

So what's wrong with this process? For one, there's no other mon in the meta that requires anything close to this. Sure this process also lets you cover Primeape so that's 2 for 1, but it crucially doesn't necessarily always cover Gurdurr, which just adds to pressure on teambuilding. No, for most Pokemon in the meta you get to actually run counters, 1-2 checks, something like that. And if you do, then you're not weak to them or significantly bothered by their presence. Passimian always bothers you, it is a strong threat in practically every single game, and it will never be useless because its mere presence demands 50/50s that other offensive threats like Pyroar just don't do. I consider the prep you have to do for Passimian to be overbearing, and that's just to keep it to a minor threat/annoyance, it can still be effective versus any team even after all that hard work. We've all seen games where Passimian has a major hand in beating teams of Spiritomb+Mesprit+Swanna or something like that, it just switches in on a lot of good mons and always has the option to U-Turn and put its team in a good position the way other mons with pivoting moves don't. And good Pursuiters + a strong Fighting type with U-Turn is just, well, not fun and also really gross amounts of pressure. If you've ever played vs HJAD's Passimian+Gurdurr+Type Null+Dual Pursuit team, you know what I'm talking about, although that's far from the only team to run Pass+Pursuit.

The upshot of this is that you see an increasing amount of builds forced to fall back on the same type of defensive cores. Altaria+Mesprit+flying type is a nice one, no CC immunity but it /mostly/ keeps you from not being too annoyed, but there's other things like Palossand+Weezing or Mesprit+Gurdurr+Spiritomb that I can respect. Of course forcing out all these same kinds of defensive cores is partly why a bunch of random breakers like Stoutland and Kingler have gotten so good recently, but that's a whole other issue. For that matter, so is how incredibly annoying Choice Scarf's presence is, as it's often almost indistinguishable from Choice Band and can put on much of the same U-Turn pressure anyway. Oh and so is how well Passimian pairs with top threats, a mon that goes well with Aurorus, Archeops, Skuntank, etc. becomes that much more common and deadly. I went into this suspect about 51/49 on banning Passimian, but all it took to convince me was just watching what kinds of teams people were using, from exhibition to decent ladder players to just testing with random people in the room. Anty brought Sableye+Haunter vs Kushalos's Spiritomb+Swanna and both were noticeably pressured by each other's Passimian. HJAD's team I mentioned before showed up and did exactly what it was meat to do. Z+V brought Mesprit + Gurdurr and lost because he was Passimian weak and that game makes me real shaky on Robert's entire 3rd paragraph. To be fair this isn't a full convergence of every team looking exactly the same, but most every team has one of about 3 patterns of defensive checks and that's stupid.

In summary, I think we're seeing an unhealthy convergence in building around a small list of mons every team needs 2-3 of (depending on how many of the other members are Pass fodder) to keep Passimian in check. This list of mons is larger than other restrictive threats we've had, but you have to run more of them on every team and even then Passimian is still a threat you have to be highly conscious of. We're already seeing how its dominance is making other wallbreakers get much better and put more pressure on teams, although I'm not seeing that have a noticeable negative impact on Passimian itself. The prep you do for Passimian is just too much, maybe not strictly in the "you should never have to run 3 checks to something" but in the "I've gotta reshape my team around handling basically one threat in a metagame already stacked with a bunch of stupid things that I'll do worse versus" sense.
I was probably overly hyperbolic in this just because it's supposed to be a big pro-ban post, I want to ban Passimian but not nearly as much as the other stuff we got rid of in beta or anything. I get the anti-ban sentiment that this isn't nearly as strong as something like Charizard or Hariyama, and that isn't wrong. That being said, Passimian has gone from a mon I really enjoy to a mon I still enjoy using but hate what it's doing to teambuilding. The same way that we got rid of Klinklang or Barbaracle, getting rid of Passimian will make the meta healthier.

Didn't manage to get reqs but got in a fair bit of battles using/against passimian. I wanted to make a long post but everyone above me said most of what I wanted to say, so I'll just try to elaborate one point.

For me, building against Passimian has become mostly just a checklist. The first thing you check is whether you can fit Palossand/Gourgeist/CroTomb, Weezing, or phys def Altaria on your team. 5 mons that I'd consider strong checks, 3 of which kinda overlap with the whole slow bulky ghost thing but fortunately not so much you can't distinguish them. Then you get to pick from the secondary middling power checks, which are Mesprit, Musharna, Sableye, and Gurdurr. If you managed to fit 2 of those on the same team then congratulations, you're done. If you could fit a strong check but not a middle check, you get to pick out 1-2 of the weak checks for your team, whereas if you got a weak but no strong you get 2-3 weak checks and have to pay very close attention to if any of your mons let Passimian switch in easily. There are a lot of those, and they will require you to run more weak checks. Those weak checks include Swanna, Sensu, Pompom, Haunter, Golurk, Ghostvally, and Fairyvally. That keeping track of Passimian fodder thing should really just apply to all teams by the way, fitting Ferroseed on teams has begun to feel like a chore and it still gets to run Protect and chip Passimian with Spikes. Oh and there are a few more mons but I'm including the good/somewhat splashable things, not Grabull. Oh and remember that a lot of these get Pursuit trapped so have fun with the threat of U-Turn into Skuntank. And also you can mess with those combinations of checks, this isn't meant to be perfect but just get the point across of how little choice you have vs this.

In addition to the really limited pool of "strong answers", the common theme between them is (a) momentum drains but also how easy they are to dunk on with strong special attackers. Stuff like Passimian+Aurorus or some other really strong special attacker is incredibly stressful to play against because (a) Either one could realistically be scarf (b) Scarf/(Band/Specs) checks differ immensely and (c) how counters to one are bait for the other. Just that core of Passimian+Aurorus could take 3 different forms (Scarf/Specs, Band/Scarf, Band/Specs) that would have a different set of answers and how do you scout threats that do ~30% against resists? So yeah Palossand/Gourgeist/Weezing/etc make great switchins to passimian on paper, but in practice they can get advantage of pretty well by Passimian's teammates. That aspect of Passimian (U-Turn) is what, at least to me, makes it worse (as in worse for the tier) than something like Sawk because its a virtually 0 cost move early on.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that a lot of the weaker answers/checks for Band tend to lose to Scarf and vice versa. Scarf Passimian CC 2hkos offensive swanna ~60% of the time without rocks. Knock Off does a chunk to Z Move Sensu, and the list goes on. On the other side, minus immunities the tier's sturdier resists take around least 30-40% from band CC, fast offensive ones take closer to 60-70%. Last thing is that minus Weezing/Altaria, the Sub-BU set can usually set up on the generally "strong answers" (CroTomb switching in on the BU ends up severely weakened/loses if Sleep Talk rolls do not go in its favor).

From a playing point of view, the tier is stable and one of the best personally, but building in it is restrictive and rather stale, and Passimian is one of the main reasons for why it is like that. I am going to mainly talk about the Choice Band set because it's the one that's used the most and source of most problems with Passimian, even though other sets also have their pros which I'm mentioning at the end of this post.

While not being inherently broken, Passimian restricts your options in building since its coverage (U-Turn, Knock Off, Gunk Shot) allows it to wear out / beat most traditional Fighting-type checks, with only 2-3 of them being the exception (Weezing, Palossand, and CroTomb / Altaria depending on the context), this not even factoring partners that are enabled by U-Turn and make Passimian's task much easier, such as Spiritomb and special wallbreakers. That said you want one of those 2-3 to be in almost every one of your teams. You can try to get away with not running any of those and rely more on offensive pressure but if you don't take a defensive approach you'll get screwed by the myriad of other threats in the tier. This means the metagame heavily favours playstyles that feature a mix of defensive and offensive options such as bulky offense and balance, while others are niche at best apart from stall which is viable.

That said, Passimian is also versatile because it's not restricted to running a Choice Band set, Choice Scarf and non Choice sets are also viable options, and make playing against Passimian even tougher because you'll have to guess its set. By running Choice Scarf you sacrifice a bit of Passimian's wallbreaking power but you gain a huge pro in speed control and being much harder to beat if you want to pressure it offensively. Non Choice sets also lose power / speed, but your opponent loses one of the main counterplays against it, which is predicting a move and then abusing the fact that Passimian is choice locked to check it.

By banning Passimian you'll of course still need to run Fighting-type checks to account for other Fighting-types, but at least you'll be more free to branch out and use checks that aren't the 2-3 I listed, with other Fighting-types having flaws that make them in many ways more manageable than Passimian (Primeape is frailer and lacks Knock Off, while Gurdurr is slower and lacks both U-Turn and can't afford to run coverage outside of Fight / Dark). Weaker playstyles such as pure offense will also benefit from this because they gain more than they lose out on: they lose an offensive threat to use but there are still plenty in the metagame, but they also lose the biggest threat for them in Choice Scarf Passimian. Bulky offense would still be the best playstyle but at least you won't be forced to run the same bulky cores anymore, making bulding definitely more fun.